George Orwell, eat your heart out

I am sure you have all heard of the novel by George Orwell titled "1984" from which the popular term "Big Brother" arose. In this novel big brother is the ruling entity which watches over the population through camera's everywhere (they are not called camera's in the book but they are). In summary, the ruling entity has the population by the short and curlies and there is nothing they can do about it.

There was a very big fear that this sort of situation would eventuate by the date of the novel's title, however, nineteen eighty-four came and went without incident or any indication that this had happened.

Then along came internet popularity and with that popularity became information. Lots of information on anyone and everyone out there on the internet for interested people to find and use. Believe it or not, people were interested, especially ruling entities.

Not just ruing entities, however, anyone who could stand to make a few clams, bucks or wampum wanted to get their hands on that information to be able to target their interested demographic and profit from it.

The worst thing about it is that everybody is putting that information on the internet voluntarily. Perhaps not understanding the implications or if they do, not caring at all.

The first time it came to my notice was when Gmail started scanning all emails for advertising material so they could push advertisements for their "free" service (tanstaafl). Now the most popular social media platforms and even Google search scan all of your posted information for various purposes.

The latest one I read is that Facebook has been testing in the US and is planning on rolling out to the world a method of using artificial intelligence to scan for potential suicides. It is already being used for other things.

We now put more of ourselves out on a worldwide public information storage than the history of humankind. Nineteen eighty-four has not just happened. It has been greatly exceeded! Camera's are not needed to monitor our inner thoughts. We are broadcasting them by choice and not caring who is listening.

What do you think of this situation? Will it get worse? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

I've always been fascinated with graphics and wrote my first drawing program on the venerable apple ][e. After discovering the x86 IBM clones and wrangling my way into the computer industry I'm now immersed in work as a System Administrator, OS builder (linuxfromscratch) and general technohead.